Redistricting shifts into high gear

GOSHEN — The Republicans' plan for redrawing Orange County's political map offers mixed prospects for the current Democratic lawmakers, hobbling some with heavily Republican districts while leaving others in safely Democratic turf or improving their districts' enrollment splits.

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By CHRIS MCKENNA

recordonline.com

By CHRIS MCKENNA

Posted Feb. 28, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By CHRIS MCKENNA

Posted Feb. 28, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

GOSHEN — The Republicans' plan for redrawing Orange County's political map offers mixed prospects for the current Democratic lawmakers, hobbling some with heavily Republican districts while leaving others in safely Democratic turf or improving their districts' enrollment splits.

The long-awaiting proposals were released Wednesday, pushing the county's once-a-decade redistricting into high gear after months of planning behind the scenes. A legislative committee already has endorsed the maps, setting the stage for an expected public hearing on March 11 and a vote to approve them on March 14.

Shut out of the planning and confronting an unexpectedly tight schedule, Democrats voiced objections at a meeting of the Legislature's Rules, Enactments and Intergovernmental Relations Committee Tuesday.

"I would think you would have inoculated yourself against criticism by having a more, open transparent process," Democratic Leader Jeff Berkman told Legislator Chairman Michael Pillmeier, who drafted the maps with Republican Legislator Katie Bonelli.

"I think we're put in a position like, 'Take it or leave it,'" he said.

Democrats, outnumbered in the Legislature and unlikely to block a Republican redistricting plan, could take comfort that none of them had been paired off. But voter registration figures provided Wednesday by the Board of Elections show the new lines tilting enrollment against some Democrat legislators and preserving edges for most Republicans.

Matt Turnbull, a Hamptonburgh Democrat who unseated Republican appointee James Petro in a Republican-leaning district in 2011, would face a bigger enrollment disadvantage this fall in his proposed new district. Republican voters would outnumber Democrats by 9 percentage points in the redrawn to 11th District, compared to a 5-point spread now.

Turnbull said Wednesday that the proposed maps appeared politically motivated, but expressed optimism about his own re-election and welcomed the addition of parts of Blooming Grove to his district.

"I believe I'm going to win, because I'm on the right side of the issues," said Turnbull, who has helped lead the Democrats' fight to renovate the county Government Center rather than replace it, as County Executive Ed Diana wants.

Legislator Mike Anagnostakis, a Town of Newburgh Republican who has fought Diana's push to privatize the county nursing home, also appears to have paid a price in redistricting.

His district, which now has an even Republican-Democratic split, would be flattened into a strip stretching from the City of Newburgh to Walden, with a 6-point Democratic enrollment edge.

Like Turnbull, he brushed aside the political tinkering.

"I believe if you're on the right side of the issues, there's nothing that could happen to you," Anagnostakis said at Tuesday's meeting.

He did question the proposal to add a corner of the City of Newburgh to his district, suggesting that the partitioning of the city into three legislative district might raise civil-rights issues for its voters.

Bonelli said at Tuesday's meeting that many of the proposed district changes were dictated by geography and population figures.

She compared manipulating the map to working with a Rubic's Cube, with movements in one place compelling changes elsewhere,